From day one, the idea was “don’t call it the Flames arena, call it the Olympic arena”. That way the government will pay the cost of building the NHL arena. That’s how it worked for the Saddledome – the Flames didn’t pay a dime.

This just the beginning. Cost estimates for large public works are always underestimated. The estimated cost of the Blue Line LRT was around seven hundred million dollars. The final cost was around $1.4 billion.

A big reason why the difference is Council making design changes – after the initial contracts are awarded. These design changes are usually on a”cost plus” basis. Examples of this are route and station changes.

The people of Quebec City and Edmonton are falling prey to one of the oldest con games – the notion that spending public money on pro sports venues is a sound investment.

Facts don’t seem to matter in this game. And your city could be fleeced next.

Stacks of independent research over many decades have shown that building a stadium or luring a new franchise does little for a city’s economy. They typically don’t generate significant new tax dollars, jobs or growth. In most cases, the money would be more wisely spent on badly needed public infrastructure, such as roads, transit or schools

It would cost much less for Calgary to buy the Flames, than to build the Flames’ proposed NHL hockey rink.

The authoritative Forbes business magazine values the Flames at about $300 million USD (excluding the Saddledome, which the City owns). The City estimates the Flames proposal around $1.8 billion Cdn. Do the math:
$600 per taxpayer versus $3,600 per taxpayer.

Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.

With community ownership of the Flames, the City could design a facility for the Stampede, Flames, and concerts ― not just a facility designed for hockey and concerts and the Stampede.

Then the City could charge the Flames rent, just as it does for amateur hockey teams.

The Flames contributed nothing to the building of the Saddledome, which Olympic advocated as an indispensable component of the 1988 Olympic bid, just as a new hockey arena is now being pitched as an indispensable component of a 2026 Olympic bid.

The Flames proposal was only partially prepared and amateurishly presented―clever but misleading.

Better that a hockey team focus on winning hockey games ― leave urban planning to the experts.

The Flames and an amateur sports group, arguing about how much new facilities would cost, neither of which have any expertise in the matter other than they would be the beneficiaries of taxpayer expenditures. Whatever number they use, it is like when a child wants $1 it asks for $5.

And having seen many public undertakings over years, we know that final costs are always multiples of original estimates.

Tying the CalgaryNEXT arena and fieldhouse proposal to a possible bid for the 2026 Winter Olympics will be a gamble for the Calgary Flames organization, said members of a CBC Calgary News at 6 political panel.

Wrapping an NHL arena inside an Olympic bid is the same strategy used to get public money to build the Saddledome. The NHL team in Calgary did not pay one cent towards the construction of the Saddledome, nor does it pay rent or leasing cost. And the City does not tax the Saddledome because the City owns it!

No to tax payers dollars for an NHL arena. For the Flames, you play, you pay.

Almost a year and a half after CalgaryNEXT was proposed, it now appears as though the Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corp. has been the first to blink. It’s unclear whether the company, which owns the NHL’s Flames and CFL’s Stampeders, actually thought city council would accept their proposed West Village arena-stadium hybrid – and the accompanying…

No tax dollars for a highly profitable private NHL hockey rink. The flames want it, they can build it.

However, if building the rink also serves the Stampede, the cultural focus of Calgary for over a 100 years; and, if the Flames pay rent (which it does not at the Saddledome), then the City might consider an arena as a for-profit venture.

This article has a good discussion of the public pros and cons of using tax dollars to build the rink.

Ken King says the proposed arena-stadium-field house complex in the West Village, known as CalgaryNEXT, is on hold as Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corp. officials discuss an alternative plan with city hall. “We’re not talking about CalgaryNEXT; we put the pause button on that,” King, the CEO of the group that owns the Flames, Hitmen, Roughnecks…

CBC News has been given a look at the CalgaryNext briefing books given to city council members. They reveal the precise detail of the Flames’ owners plans for new sports facilities for professional athletes and Calgarians. They also show the 2026 winter Olympics are part of the plan.

Was there ever any doubt. Connecting a new new NHL hockey arena with an Olympic bid is the same tactic used in 1988 – bid for the Olympics and oh, by the way, we can use the Olympic arena for an NHL arena.

And those Olympics cost tax payers. The ONLY reason the ’88 Olympics didn’t “lose” money is because governments threw in millions of dollars.

2. There must be extensive stakeholder consultation, public engagement and open and transparent communications with Calgarians

West Village

Calgary’s city council secretly approved the $36.9-million purchase of contaminated land — now being pitched as part of the site for a new downtown arena and stadium complex … [CALGARY HERALD, August 18, 2015]

Liberal cabinet minister Kent Hehr says Ottawa won’t cough up cash for a new Calgary Flames arena but he left the door open to federal dollars for other aspects of the CalgaryNEXT proposal. In an interview this week, the Calgary Centre MP and Veterans Affairs Minister said the Trudeau government is maintaining the policy of the former Conservative…

Mr. King isn’t facing reality. Calgarians do not want to go further into debt during a recession for and NHL arena, regardless of the “enormous” return (for whom?) he sees from the arena’s construction.

The introduction of a state-of-the-art professional hockey arena and concert venue in the provincial capital has prompted a review of the stance of Calgarians on a possible replacement for the Scotiabank Saddledome and McMahon Stadium.

While some sports fans may be green with envy of new facilities set to open in Edmonton and Regina, many Calgarians remain opposed to spending public money on the CalgaryNEXT proposal, according to a new poll. One year after ambitious visions of the sports mega-complex — with a price tag ranging from $1.3 billion to $1.8 billion — on Calgary’s west…

Flames own original estimate of a proposed NHL rink for Calgary has risen from $9 billion to $1.3 billion, a difference or $400. I think the Flames should stick to hockey if this is the best they can do at urban planning.

Councilor Keating is dreaming in technicolor if he thinks Calgary tax payers can get away with only a $200 million tax bite for an NHL hockey rink. $200 is to get Calgary hooked; we’re looking at over a billion dollars that we don’t have.

Let’s have a plebiscite on new sportsplex Re: “Flames reveal details of $890-million downtown arena-stadium plan,” Aug. 19. Spending billions for new arenas is touted by politicians and team owners as a sure win for the economy, but a plethora of studies show otherwise. Calgary taxpayers have a right to say either yes or no through…

City councillors in Calgary voted 12-2 late Monday in favour of spending up to $5 million to support a plan from the Calgary Sport Tourism Authority to spend 14 months exploring a bid for the 2026 Olympic Games. A day after council took the first step toward bringing the Winter Games back to Calgary, Postmedia reporter Annalise Klingbeil…

This is the same approach used to get an NHL hockey rink for the Flames. The Olympics required a large ice surface, so a new arena “just had to be built”. It was just “coincidental” that the rink could be used for an NHL franchise.

This rational might have been okay, but the only way the 88 Olympics worked was if the city, provincial, and federal governments threw in money. In other words, the Olympics were money losers until tax payer money was used. This is the reason some major cities have refused to host the Games, and why Calgary should as well.

Flames boss Ken King has two words for Calgary — “second place.” That’s where we’ll be, he says, without new sports and entertainment facilities. In an interview, King said that when Edmonton’s new arena opens this fall, “you should check the exit visas from Calgary going to Edmonton, because that’s where Calgarians are going to go to watch…

Mayor Naheed Nenshi is glad the sports ownership group that pitched a new hockey arena, covered football stadium and multi-sport field house in the West Village is now exploring a so-called Plan B. Last summer, the Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corp. unveiled its Plan A to replace the aging Scotiabank Saddledome and McMahon Stadium with an…

The Calgary Multisport Fieldhouse Society says it can’t continue to rely on the city to come up with the money to build a fieldhouse if it wants to see a multi-sport indoor facility built anytime soon.

Foothills Athletic Park was the site selected for a field house years ago by civic planners. The Flames field-house promotion was an arrogant grab for public funds by a private enterprise (the Flames).

It was an arrogant grab for funds by a private enterprise (the Flames) the height of arrogance for the Flames to promot West Village as a new sit for the project; this was a blatant grab by a

Seattle Councilors voting against a new arena said “that financial arguments had swayed them. They said that giving over city resources for the project …. made the arena terms questionable” [N.Y. Times, May 7, 2016]

“Reasonable people may disagree with their vote, but these council members were fulfilling their fiduciary responsibility to Seattle residents and acting in good faith”. [Seattle Times, Letters to the Editor, May 5, 2016]

The Calgary Flames’ ambitious vision to build a professional and amateur sports complex in the West Village hit a major roadblock Wednesday following the release of a city analysis showing CalgaryNEXT could cost ultimately about $1.8 billion and have taxpayers pay up to two-thirds of the tab. It’s a staggering sum that city hall insiders believe…

No experienced independent, objective viewpoint saw, from the beginning, this proposal being less than $2 billion, with the City being on the hook for most of it.

But, don’t expect the Flames to stop here; and, there will be some Councilors supporting them. Furthermore, the creosote soil contamination will be judged manageable and the health risk negligible. After all, the land has been continuously occupied and no one has dies yet.

Really. There’s more to life and living than just business as a criterion for what we do.

This Business In Calgary article, March 2016, promotes the proposed CalgaryNEXT project, although it purports to be an objective analysis. The publisher of the magazine states that if “business does well so will our city” (page 36).

The owners contribution to the proposed project would be borrowed money, which, “if the city is unwilling to grant this loan“, they will seek another source.

The CalgaryNEXT proposal should be rejected. No city planner has envisioned a hockey arena for this part of our city; and, we should not be subsidizing private business.

Murray Edwards is certainly free to live wherever he chooses, but his timing couldn’t be worse. Edwards, of course, is chairman of Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. and is also chairman and part-owner of the Calgary Flames. He also happens to be chairman of Magellan Aerospace Corp., and that company’s recent tax filings show that Edwards has…

This analysis fails to include the cost of infrastructure, such as the rebuilding of Crowchild Trail and Bow Trail; electrical and gas lines; and the capability fo the Bow River to absorb the additional effluent.

This is an example of a politician talking about something outside her range of expertise. She should talk to the finance minister who will tell her that there isn’t any money for a proposed Flames arena.

The debate over the massive CalgaryNEXT arena, football stadium, fieldhouse project, really heated up this week when the NHL commissioner was in town. So what does Sport Calgary think? Murray Sigler is with the umbrella organization for several amateur sport groups in the city. He was on Sportsnet 960 The Fan with Rob Kerr. Sigler […]

The expert urban planners and city recreation department have been planning file houses for Foothills and North Glenmore for years. They have the demographic data and the city vision that the flames do not. the Flames should stick to hockey and try to win a Stanley cup

“The evidence reveals a great deal of consistency among economists doing research in this area. That evidence is that sports subsidies cannot be justified on the grounds of local economic development, income growth or job creation, those arguments most frequently used by subsidy advocates. The paper also relates survey evidence showing that economists in general oppose sports subsidies.”

the city thinks it is gaining a valuable new asset and a few short years later it realizes it bought a lemon.But teams want new arenas because they provide many new revenue streams for the team in question: luxury suites, seat licenses, bars, shops, basically everywhere but the loo is set up to steer money toward ownership. If the public can help offset the initial investment in such a facility, all the better for the team. And, when the new building is completed, the value of the team is instantly much higher. That supplements the growth in franchise values that has already been driven by the huge jump in broadcasting fees.

“It is not an overstatement to say the future stability, viability and continuity of the Calgary Flames, and perhaps the city of Calgary, rests on the achievement of CalgaryNEXT,” Bettman told the crowd.

“It is not an overstatement to say the future stability, viability and continuity of the Calgary Flames, and perhaps the city of Calgary, rests on the achievement of CalgaryNEXT,” Bettman told the crowd.

Oh oh, Calgary is going to slip into the Pacific Ocean if it doesn’t build the proposed arena.

The National Hockey League’s top boss begged Calgary’s elected officials, business and community leaders Monday to back the Flames’ pitch to build a $890-million sports complex in the city’s west downtown. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman made his remarks at a sold-out luncheon address to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce in which he talked about the…

Bettman says he can’t understand why Calgary isn’t moving ahead on the Flames proposed new arena. Well, it’s because it’s a poorly thought out and presented idea, that’s why Mr. Bettman. It’s for the wrong part of town and it costs too much taxpayer dollars.

Calgary’s mayor is standing firm on the City’s review of the CalgaryNEXT project, after the NHL commissioner gave a presentation urging the local government to embrace it. Gary Bettman told a Calgary Chamber of Commerce audience the project needs to happen, noting the Flames will be in the oldest NHL arena by 2017 and won’t […]

We do not elect Councilors to build billion dollar arenas. We elect them to build parks and roads, provide water and electricity, and remove snow. They do not have a mandate to commit massive public funds for private business (the Flames).

Let the public decide in a binding plebiscite or referendum. Better yet, make it a major election issue in the next civic election1

When it comes to a new sports complex, and whether it’s in “the public benefit,” the question could be put to a plebiscite. But Mayor Naheed Nenshi doesn’t want to go there, so CBC’s Rob Brown takes a look at our options.

A public vote should be binding, whether it is a plebiscite or a referendum. The question should be “Would you pay more than $2,000 each for a professional hockey arena?” and not “Would you like a new hockey arena?”

Early analysis suggests using a $200-million community revitalization levy to partially bankroll the Calgary Flames group’s mega sports complex in west downtown won’t work, Mayor Naheed Nenshi said in a recent year-end interview. This summer, Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corp. pitched an ambitious plan to build a new NHL arena, CFL stadium and public field…

Mayor Naheed Nenshi says council has a duty to carefully scrutinize the Flames’ “half-baked” proposal to build an $890-million sports complex in the West Village. On Monday, the mayor’s office was set to present a report to council that suggested a multi-phase analysis of the Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corp. proposal for a new NHL arena,…

Councilor Farrell notes that when all costs are considered, this is more likely to cost $1.5 BILLION. Given our experience with cost estimates for public works, I have no doubt we are looking at an ultimate cost of $2 Billion, and you know it will be the Calgary taxpayer bearing this.

With Calgary Sport and Entertainment Corp. formally requesting to build Ca
lgary­NEXT on a 130-acre plot known as West Village next to downtown — a project which could require up to $690 million in taxpayer funding to cover the estimated $890 million tab — the Sun decided to take a look at some other major stadium projects completed and under constr

One of the biggest hurdles to be cleared before Calgary Sport and Entertainment Corporation’s proposal for an $890-million arena, event centre and fieldhouse can move forward will be the environmental remediation of the West Village.

“I have consistently expressed that I am not in favour of public money or free land going toward for-profit organizations. Calgarians would have to see a significant public benefit from CalgaryNEXT, for money or free land to be given.” Councilor Druh farrell

Consultants and politicians say extensive market and economic feasibility studies must be done before a $240-million community revitalization levy is approved to partially finance a proposed multi-sport complex in downtown Calgary’s west end. Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corp., which owns the Calgary Flames, Stampeders, Hitmen and Roughnecks, has proposed using the levy to help fund…

Re: “No corporate welfare for CalgaryNEXT,” Paige MacPherson, Opinion, Sept. 9Well — they do intend to pay for their “flashy arena desires” — not taxpayers! There were so many ill-founded politically expedient statements and assumptions in this piece that I felt compelled to respond.

Last month’s dramatic unveiling of the Calgary Flames’ ambitious plans for a massive new arena-stadium complex in the West Village should have been the starting point for a conversation. Instead, it increasingly appears as though the Flames intended their announcement to be the first and final word on the matter. Are we to believe, though,…

When Calgary Sports and Entertainment Group announced its preferred location for its CalgaryNEXT project of an arena/stadium/fieldhouse was West Village, many Calgarians exclaimed, “Where’s that?” It is the land west of 14th Street S.W., north of the CPR tracks, south of the Bow River and east of Crowchild Trail. The name was given to the area…

A high-ranking official for a Canadian economic think tank is laying out how CalgaryNEXT could be approved with the contribution of taxpayer money. Glen Hodgson, Senior VP and Chief Economist with the Conference Board of Canada, said while research suggests new sports facilities don’t create a net benefit to a local economy, they could be […]

The Calgary Flames ownership group is standing on the steps of City Hall, lips quivering, arms outstretched, fedoras in hand. They need hundreds of millions of our tax dollars for a so-called city building project, a downtown NHL arena and sports complex dubbed CalgaryNEXT. If you have a problem with that, “then what’s your competing…

NEXT STEPS

Consulting Calgarians on new arena plan:

Calgary Sun

20 Aug 2015

DAVE DORMER dave.dormer@sunmedia.ca @SUNDaveDormer

Where do we go from here?

After announcing plans to build an $890 million arena, event centre and fieldhouse, the next step for Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corp. officials will be to begin meeting with various levels of government, said president and CEO Ken King, while city officials will start engaging Calgarians and looking into the cleanup of the creosote-contaminated site.

“Essentially this is the

Formal request,” said King. “What we want to do now is begin the dialogue on a (Community Revitalization Levy), that’s a dialogue that takes place between the (Calgary Municipal Land Corp., which manages cityowned lands) the city and the province.”

When it comes to the environmental cleanup of the proposed CalgaryNEXT’s West Village site, there’s no precedent for the province stepping in to cover the cost, said the premier.

“We have operated in this province for many years on a principle of polluter pay and there’s really no precedent of the province stepping in to pay the cost of remediation when a polluter has contaminated a piece of property,” Premier Rachel Notley said during a visit to the Calgary-Foothills riding Wednesday evening.

The Calgary Flames’ arena proposal for the west end is brilliant. It’s also a dream wrapped in a mystery shrouded in fog. At this stage, the Flames can answer virtually no questions about the biggest building and revitalization project ever proposed for Calgary. With the hockey rink, event centre, football stadium and fieldhouse all in one…

Calgary Flames expected to ask city for $200M

Metro Canada (Calgary)

13 Aug 2015

Robson Fletcher Metro | Calgary

The Calgary Flames plan to unveil “high-level” information next Tuesday about a project dubbed “Calgary NEXT,” adding fuel to ongoing speculation about the team’s plans for a new arena and what it may ask of taxpayers as part of the proposal.

“We would like to share a proposal for a project that will make all Calgarians and Albertans proud,” King wrote in an email to seasonticket holders, copies of which circulated online Wednesday. “This has the potential to be one of Calgary’s most transformative projects at a vital time in our city’s history.”

A source with knowledge of the proposal told Metro the Flames are expected to ask the city for roughly $200 million toward the multi-use facility, which would not only provide a home to the NHL team and the Calgary Stampeders, but also include a multisport fieldhouse for public use.

The city has already approved a concept plan — but hasn’t secured funding — to build a new fieldhouse at Foothills Athletic Park with a price tag “in the range of $200 million,” the source noted.

The idea would be to instead incorporate that into the Flames’ project in the West Village area, just west of downtown, as opposed to building a “standalone” facility at Foothills, the source said. In his email, King said more detailed information is to be released Tuesday.

“This is not a formal launch of the project, but it is an opportunity for us to share what has been done to date and introduce our vision for the future,” he wrote.

Calgary needs to take a deep breath. Whatever challenges or opportunities CalgaryNEXT presents, it does not represent an existential crisis for the city. The Calgary Flames have presented their idea for new facilities for their professional franchises to call home, and have offered up a rough outline of how the $890-million project should be funded.…

Over the past 15 years, more than $12 billion in public money has been spent on privately owned stadiums. Between 1991 and 2010, 101 new stadiums were opened across the country; nearly all those projects were funded by taxpayers. The loans most often used to pay for stadium construction—a variety of tax-exempt municipal bonds—will cost the federal government at least $4 billion in taxpayer subsidies to bondholders. Stadiums are built with money borrowed today, against public money spent tomorrow, at the expense of taxes that will never be collected. Economists almost universally agree that publicly financed stadiums are bad investments, yet cities and states still race to the chance to unload the cash. What gives?

Calgary Flames executives will join a meeting next week with stakeholders in tourism, civic affairs and amateur sport to discuss the viability of the CalgaryNEXT proposal. In a meeting with the Herald’s editorial team Thursday, Ken King, CEO of the Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corp., confirmed he will meet next week with city officials, Tourism…

The Calgary Flames have a motto for their players — “nothing given, everything earned.” It’s a mantra the NHL team’s executives would do well to embrace as they lobby governments for hundreds of millions of’ dollars to build the entertainment complex and urban redevelopment project they’re proposing to transform the city’s west end. Ken King, chief executive of Calgary Sports and…

The provincial and federal governments bear some responsibility in remediating contaminated land in the city’s West Village where the owners of the Calgary Flames and Stampeders hope to build an $890-million sports complex, says Mayor Naheed Nenshi.

First, soil remediation at the proposed arena site has been underway for years, begging the question of who is paying for that. Whoever that is, by paying the cost, has accepted liability and is responsible for completing the clean-up.

Alberta[edit] In April 2012, it was proposed that the Alberta government change regulations so that the Community Revitalization Levy (CRL) could be applied to remediation costs “incurred by a private developer.”[36]:18 “The CRL does not currently allow the levy to be used for remediation costs incurred by a private developer. While the CRL is quite a comprehensive approach that is not widely used, it is suggested that a change in regulation to allow the levy to apply to remediation costs would provide inc

Calgary Flames executives will join a meeting next week with stakeholders in tourism, civic affairs and amateur sport to discuss the viability of the CalgaryNEXT proposal. In a meeting with the Herald’s editorial team Thursday, Ken King, CEO of the Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corp., confirmed he will meet next week with city officials, Tourism…

There are many stakeholders mentioned in this article, but they are all potential beneficiaries of CSE’s proposed project. By their absence, financially responsible taxpayers lose the public relations war by default.

The wrong question is being asked. The question being asked publicly is “would you like this bright, shiny new thing”, for which the answer is immediately yes. If the question were “would you like to pay for this new thing”, the answer would be no.

An artist’s rendition shows the proposed $ 890- million stadium project put forward by the Calgary Flames. Documents identify Montreal- based paper producer Domtar, operating as Canada Creosote, as the company responsible for contaminating the proposed site in the 1960s. An environmental lawyer says the previous owners could be forced to clean up the site but Flames CEO Ken King says he isn’t considering taking such action.

A new Mainstreet Research poll shows we’re in for a long, wrenching debate over the west end and the very soul of the city. Thirty-nine per cent of Calgarians like, or somewhat like, the CalgaryNEXT plan for building a vast multi-sport complex. Thirty-four per cent are opposed or somewhat opposed. The rest are somewhere in the…